Great Lakes Now highlights new opportunities for U.S.-Canadian cooperation, including the perspective of Council of the Great Lakes Region CEO Mark Fisher.
Despite blustery rhetoric about zeroing the GLRI budget, restoration work continued without disruption, Council of the Great Lakes Region president Mark Fisher told Great Lakes Now.
“We’ve seen an even stronger commitment to protecting and restoring the Great Lakes,” he said, including the recent commitment of up to $475 million over the next five years.
Fisher expects this latest funding will encourage the Canadian government to firm up its own commitments to Great Lakes programming, which has been lagging.
“Canada is well behind the United States. There’s a noticeable gap,” he said, between the restoration work undertaken by state and local governments, tribes, and post-secondary institutions in the U.S. and the partnerships that Canada has mobilized. With a federal budget expected in Canada soon, Fisher hopes Ottawa will prioritize Great Lakes protection as part of a larger clean growth initiative.
To read the entire February 24, 2021 article by Andrew Reeves at Great Lakes Now, click here.
